Complain about a product or service

US Bank

William of Encino, CA June 10, 2009

US Bank loves to do whatever they theink they can to get your money. On Monday June 8, 2009, I gave my rent check to my landlord. On the same day, at 7 am, I deposited half the rent from my girlfriend to the bank. I called the 800 customer service number at 2pm that same day to see if I needed to deposit cash to make sure that the rent check would not cause an overdraft. I was informed that that was not necessary since the check would clear overnight and that money would be deposited first before and money was taken from my account. On tuesday June 10, 2009 I looked at my bank account online and saw only 150 in my available balance. When I started to investigate what coused my account to drop so low, I saw six (6) overdraft charges pending on my account in the amount of 37.50 each! I called the bank to inquire how I could have overdrafted, yet maintained a positve balance. They transfered me to Sam in my home brance.

Sam informed me that he was the supervisor at the branch and that no refund could be made on the overdraft fees because the check didn't clear until 6 am that day, while the rest of the debits from my account cleared earlier than 6 am. When I asked to speak to Sam's supervisor, he told me to contact the 800 customer service number. When I told him that they transfered me to him, he told me that he was the supervisor...and around we went trying to figure out who is next in command.

At one point I actually had to ask him if he was the president of the bank! He then informed me that the manager was out of the office, so that is why he was in charge. When I asked for the manager's contact information, Sam told me he was hanging up and did just that! No one at US Bank is willing to refund any overdraft charges and I am out a lot of money because of it.

I am out 225 in overdraft fees. I also had to do a "checking account advance" to make sure that other checks will clear in the amount of 300. The interest on that is 30 and it is a vicious cycle because now I have to find 300 somewhere or else when I get my next deposit, they will deduct the 330 and I will have to advance another 300!

Lindsey of Burlington, IA June 12, 2009

I feel like I'm writing the same complaint as others I've read on here. I opened a new joint checking account with my husband at our local US Bank (after having to close my 12 year account with Bank of America since there are none here in our new town.) So I started depositing my weekly paychecks by walking into the bank. My husband did the same. Neither of our employers offer direct deposit. Well of course over the weekend we bought groceries and gas with our ATM card.

Well, the next week I check my account balance online. The entire weekend of purchases were allowed to go through, but apparently there was 0.00 available in our account! Even though there was over 1500 in there! The bank "held" our funds for several days "because it was new account" and all of our transactions were considered an overdraft. For each separate overdraft,we were charged 19 per transaction, totalling over 100. Now this was only over a 2 day period of the FIRST WEEKEND WE HAD THIS NEW CHECKING ACCOUNT. Not a good first impression.

When I called them and went into my branch to discuss this, they acted like they had done nothing wrong and it was standard policy to hold funds (even paychecks) for 1 - 5 business days on new checking accounts! Needless to say, I am not a happy new customer of US Bank.

I think this whole "hold your funds then charge you overdraft fees" is nothing more than a money making SCAM. When is this common bank practice going to be AGAINST THE LAW? My husband and I are almost ready to close our account. We've only been customers of US Bank for a little over a month and we're already ready to jump ship.

Mathew of Ellenboro, NC June 18, 2009

Doing a refinance of my mortgage to take advantage of the lower rates. When the new bank requested a loan payoff statement from US Bank there was a charge for Recoverable Corporate Advance Balance for an amount equal to an extra monthly payment. They are unable to give me an explanation as to the reason for this charge. First they said it was for goverment assistance that I never received. They then said it was for unpaid escrow and this is not an escrow account and never has been. They then said it was for a missed payment and then a differed payment both of which has never happened. No where in my contract does it state that this is a valid charge and now they simply say they have to research to find out what it is for and never call back to give me an answer. I will have to pay an extra 603.67 and it will delay the closing of my loan if I do not pay it.

Bob of Riverside, CA June 5, 2009

According to US Bank, a "pending transaction" is one that will be posted permanently to the account at the end of the business day. A transaction labeled "pending" in actuality will get permanently posted within 1-5 days of showing up on the account but it's reflected in the running account balance in real time. US Bank will reflect pending transactions in the account balance and available balance. When the balances become negative due to US Bank applying pending transactions towards the account/available balances, this is what they do: US Bank will: take a particular pending transaction (call this transaction A) which will not cause an account to become overdraw and they will reflect it and apply it to the account and available balance even though it's considered pending. Transaction B, which is another pending transaction and is significantly smaller than A will get reflected towards the account and available balance as well but this will cause the account to go red and trigger an overdraft to occur (we will call this overdraft 'NFS B' because pending transaction B triggered it to occur). Now NSF B gets permanently posted to the account while both transaction A and B are still pending. Thus causing the overdrawn account to become more negative. This is fine with me as it is my fault. Here is the problem: Pending transaction A and B will then switch places on the register which, in reality, makes transaction A appear to cause NSF B. The NSF fees are not labeled to which transaction caused them, they just post arbitrarily. It is at this time that transaction A becomes permanently posted. Transaction B which, is still pending, then gets permanently posted after Transaction A and NSF B are permanently posted. This causes transaction B to trigger an overdraft AGAIN which is the second NSF fee that was caused by transaction B. But since they don’t label NSF fees, it looks like A caused the first NSF fee and B caused the second. I believe this is double dipping and they use the term pending as a justification to switch transactions and cause multiple overdrafts to occur when only one was suppose to occur. This is what has happened to me. I know that I need to be more responsible with paying attention to when I don't have enough available funds to cover a transaction; however, it is their little tricks that allow them to double dip. If US Bank did not attribute pending transactions towards the running balance and instead only attributed them towards the running balance when they became permanently posted this double dipping would not occur. It has turned a tens of dollars problem into a 1000+ dollar problem.

Nikka of Lakewood, CA June 7, 2009

As a result of the U.S. bank takeover of Downey Savings Bank I lost access to my account balance and any other information on my account. I had my pay checks directly deposited into my account, yet when I checked my mail I had over draft fees that consumed all of them, although I had only spent about 48.00 in the last week. I had been denied any communication with the banks customer service representatives, When I was able to go into a branch the co-manager told me it was because of a hold they had placed on my check, but that they would fix it the following morning. But now they are telling me unless I pay the charge of 259.00 my account will be sent to collections. U.S. bank will also continue to charge my account every day I can't pay it. The 800.00 that was in my account was all I had to be able to fix the situation, but for some reason it is no longer there.

Anthony of Florissant, MO June 3, 2009

After I deposited my first payroll check, I noticed within the next day or so non-sufficient fund fees. After investigating the cause, I learned that the bank put a hold on the money already in my account. Next, they would allow debit card transactions to be approved- each resulting in a 35 overdraft fee. At the same time, when I would call to do a balance inquiry (by phone) I was told that I had a positive balance. I was not aware that I was about to enter into such an expensive( and misleading) transaction, or I would have canceled and used other means to handle my payroll check.

Unfortunately, the number of fees would quickly multiply. In less than one month, my account has become negative 700 today-- ALL DUE TO BANK FEES!!! I have deposited more than 2500 during that same time period. And the fees continues to grow more negative with USBank 8/day negative balance fee! This is out of control!

Jamie of Dayton, OH May 29, 2009

About three years ago, before my husband and I got married, we decided after moving in together, that we wanted to get a joint checking account. Being that we were only exclusively dating, his name went on as the primary of the account. The day that we went to set up our joint checking account, I deposited savings bonds from my grandmother in the amount of 4,904.38 and 400.00 on 10-25-06. A few days later, we went back to a different US Bank that is inside most Meijer's grocery stores in the Southwest Ohio region to take out some money and do some shopping.

After I got the receipt of our balance, I noticed that it said we had 49,034.38! Whoever originally deposited our money, deposited it as 44,130.00 Now, I've never worked at a bank before, but I find it utterly ridiculous that they would hire someone who is obviously not qualified for the job, being as they are completely illiterate and incapable of putting in the correct amount. For weeks, maybe months, I called and called and called the original bank branch I deposited that bond at, I called district, I called corporate, I called anyone and everyone I could to get this matter sorted out. Some people may think, "Oh hey, great! I've got over 40,000 to blow and I'm only 18 years old." But, we were responsible with that money, knowing fully well that it belonged to someone else and if we spent any of it, then we'd be held responsible to pay it back. US Bank was completely and totally uncooperative with this situation. It's like it didn't matter that we had a large sum of money that wasn't ours.

I'd tell the story to one person working in "customer service" who would say, "WOW! That's crazy!" only to transfer me to someone else who I would have to explain the story to as well, etc. etc. etc. This got old. I was always promised a phone call back, or promised that things would get taken care of. Nothing ever did. Unfortunately, we did overdraft that account, due to the fact that we couldn't tell what was really ours. So, as of the next two months, we are paying 400 a month to a collection agency, because they settled with us at 1000. Also, I'm no longer able to get a debit card in my name. So after weeks of calling nearly every day to get the money taken out of our account (so we could actually know what was ours vs. what wasn't) they took it out, only to put it back in a few days later. Why? Who knows. We never got an explanation. Because US Bank doesn't care about handling customer issues. They only care about calling and harassing you when they need some kind of payment. Finally, we broke down and called the Dayton Bar Association to hire a lawyer to get all these matters dealt with. We went downtown to Green & Green Law and paid 150 for a lawyer to simply write a letter explaining the situation. Needless to say, he was blown away by our predicament, stating that he had never seen anything like that before. It's frustrating to me that although I called countless times over a two month period, begging someone to take out that money, all it took was a letter with a heading that stated it was from a lawyer to get that matter dealt with. I guess I'm not nearly as important as a lawyer, thus why my attempts to settle everything always went unnoticed. This was my first experience with a checking account. And since then, I've been weary about banks, even the Credit Union we currently bank at. And, this was definitely my first and last experience with US Bank. I have never in my life been so disrespected and been lied to so many times. I did receive a letter after they FINALLY took out the money that "apologized for any inconvenience" with a impersonal typed out name of "Shelley Robinson, Deposit Adjustments." U.S. Bank is a terrible financial institution who will NEVER care about their customers or the true "inconvenience" they afflict people with.

kerra of dayton, OH May 27, 2009

I leased a 2005 CRV for 4 years. I was never late. I was completely compliant with all the terms and conditions in the lease. The vehicle was in excellent condition and had only 14,000 miles. I turned the car in 4 days before the end of the lease and about a week after they sent their inspector to my home to check out the vehicle. I received a bill for 70 + tax to repair a small scratch on the driver side door. It could be easily buffed out,but they considered it excessive wear and tear.

I drove the car all the time and I never noticed it. I was also hit with a 395 contractual termination fee. The man I spoke with explained it to me as the extra payments I needed to make that apparently were not included in my monthly bill. This makes no sense. Nowhere is that listed as part of my lease,except on the back where it does not state what it is. I read it but they make it sound like it's part of the payment for wear and tear.

I have an excellent credit rating. I did not buy a home above my means, and all of my bills are not only paid on time,but often the moment I receive them in the mail. I have spoken with other US Bank customers and they too are disgusted. We have a right to be angry when we,the tax payers,just bailed out the banking industry. I also had a 5.9% Bank of America credit card go up to 14.99 until I called and complained. They "graciously" told me that it did not matter about my good standing,because it cost a lot more these days to run their bank. I was offered 10.9% for the rest of the balance of never use it again and keep the 5.9%.The card is now in teeney tiny pieces.

I find myself leaning toward gov control of this industry -- socialism sounds better and better

Joel of Pomona, CA May 29, 2009

Since US Bank has taken over Pomona First Federal, I have had several problems with overdraft charges. Just last night I had to pay an emergency vet bill and my online checking showed I had sufficient funds to cover the payment. This morning, I was looking at my bank statement and all was well and good. My paycheck had been direct deposited and all transactions had cleared.

This afternoon, I checked the online bank statement and it showed two overdraft fees for 35 each. I called their 800 number and the customer service rep walked me through my statement online. She directed me to look at a specific check that had cleared yesterday and told me to click on the blue "remaining balance" column. She told me that to understand my error, I would need to "go back in time" to see that the check had not really been cleared. The time-travel experiment simply proved to me that their online statements are not static documents that can be trusted. The legality of a statement that morphs into whatever brings in the most money through outrageous fees is certainly suspect.

I complained fiercely and the fees were taken reversed. That being said, I can only imagine how consumers with less savvy and tenacity are losing their hard-earned money to these sharks.

Alicia of Corona, CA May 21, 2009

I went in on Sat 5/16 to deposit my payroll check as usual only to find out that not only was my check going to be held until tues 5/19. So being aware of the fact that I had a couple of electronic drafts that were due to come out on Mon 5/18 so I told the teller (Marissa) that I needed to know my balance to make sure I would have enough funds to cover the drafts and she told me that they were not live yet and therefore could not give me the balance on my acct. So I told her that I should not be responsible for any overdrafts on the account because of the fact that they were holding my payroll and check and could not give me the balance.

I told her several times infront of the old Downey Savings branch manager (Sheila) because I knew that when I came back on Tuesday to argue it they would not honor it. Marissa told me to call the automated system to get my balance and go off of that and that if I became overdrawn they would take care of it. Sure enough I checked my acct on Tues 5/19 there were three overdraft fees and only showed 3 charges pending. So I thought it was ok.

Well I went to check it again today and I had 6 35 overdrawn fees for items that were done with my visa/atm as a credit over the weekend that instead of declining they approved. Downey would have never done that. This is the way these people make their money. I told branch supervisor there that I would pay what I charged but would not pay the overdraft fees and he refused to credit my acct giving me the run around and telling me that he needed his manager's approval.

I then asked to close the acct and make payment arrangements and he said he could not do that that I would have to wait for the acct to close itself, so I said in the meantime it will be charged 8 a day for being overdrawn and he said he could not answer that. If this is what they have to do to get promoted and or keep their jobs what a shame.

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